Sanie and language loss in China
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David Bradley
Abstract
Most of the many languages spoken by the large and widely distributed Yi nationality in China are endangered. One such is Sanie, spoken by about 8,000 people from a group of over 17,000 near Kunming in Yunnan. In surveying the area around Kuming, we located Sanie and a number of other undescribed and in most cases unreported endangered languages. Sanie is remarkable in that in some dialects it preserves velar plus | w | clusters which have been simplified in all other closely related languages. Such a cluster is found in the group name; this gives us a clearer understanding of the original autonym for the Yi languages as a whole. Therefore, the new name Ngwi for this group of languages is proposed, with etymological justifications. Sanie also has a large range of internal differences, suggesting that processes of change are speeded up during the process of language death. However it is shown to be a typical Eastern Yi language, like several of the other endangered languages spoken around Kunming including Samataw and Samei.
© Walter de Gruyter
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Artikel in diesem Heft
- Introduction: language policy and language endangerment in China
- A dialect murders another dialect: the case of Hakka in Hong Kong
- Tungusic: an endangered language family in Northeast Asia
- Contact, attrition, and structural shift: evidence from Oroqen
- Diachronic and synchronic overview of the Tujia language of Central South China
- Survey of the current situation of Laomian and Laopin in China
- Language revitalization or dying gasp? Language preservation efforts among the Bisu of Northern Thailand
- The Anong language: studies of a language in decline
- Sanie and language loss in China
- A vanishing language: the case of Xiandao
- Book review
